


Mirror Mirror

by magisterpavus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ;), Alternate Universe - College/University, Demisexual Keith (Voltron), Demons, Dreams, Friends to Lovers, In a manner of speaking, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Roommates, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mirror Sex, Miscommunication, Overstimulation, Pining Shiro (Voltron), Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Sex Pollen, Sleepwalking, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:08:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterpavus/pseuds/magisterpavus
Summary: The smirk widened. Shiro took a step back; his reflection did not.“Shit,” Shiro whispered. “Shit, shit,shit.”His reflection’s lips didn’t move.“What do you want?” he demanded, and this time its lips did move, taking Shiro’s words and selecting what they needed from it into the reply,What you want.(tldr; the one where shiro's haunted mirror self makes shiro come to terms with his big stupid crush on keith - OR ELSE.)
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Shiro/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 404





	Mirror Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> I always have a lot of fun cooking up something spooky for Halloween, so HAPPY HALLOWEEN, I hope yours is delightful and devoid of cursed mirrors (unless that's your thing, in which case, godspeed). 
> 
> Thank you to Kricket for the wonderful prompt for this....it was only supposed to be 1k. Famous last words, ha :p 
> 
> Find me and more sheith (& now, hades...) [@saltyshiro](https://twitter.com/saltyshiro)!

“It’s perfect,” Keith declared, staring up at the narrow, two-story black and white Victorian crammed in the confines of its iron-fenced yard, surrounded by comparatively boring townhouses all down the street.

“It’s definitely something,” Shiro said, with far less certainty than Keith. “I’m surprised they haven’t torn it down yet, honestly.”

Keith shrugged. “Our gain, right? It looks like it’s in good shape, at least from the outside.”

“I don’t know, Keith,” Shiro said as Keith started towards the imposing, ivy-covered wrought iron gates. “It looks like it’s haunted; that’s what it looks like.”

Keith huffed and raised an eyebrow at him over his shoulder as he pushed the gate open. “Haunted? Didn’t think you believed in ghosts. Do you?”

“I treat ghosts with a healthy level of respect and caution,” Shiro retorted, gingerly closing the gate behind him. “I don’t fuck with them, if that’s what you’re asking — fair warning, if you try to bring a ouija board in here, nope, not happening.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Keith said, sounding thoughtful now. The porch steps creaked under their weight. “Probably a good idea not to fuck with ghosts.”

“Glad we’re in agreement on that one.”

Inside, the house was clean and bare, save for a few simple pieces of furniture. There was nothing fancy about this place, but it was old, it must have been, because they just didn’t make houses like this one anymore. Even after a few seconds inside, Shiro became aware of how cold and drafty it was — the high ceilings, narrow halls, and poor insulation did little to keep the place even slightly warm.

But Keith looked even more elated than before, starting up the creaky stairs with wide eyes. Truthfully, Shiro had rarely seen him so outwardly excited before. “You a fan of these kinds of houses?” Shiro asked him, tentatively following him up, if only so he wouldn’t be left downstairs.

Keith nodded, waiting for him at the top of the stairs though he was practically vibrating with anticipation. “Yeah. Kinda always wanted to live in a place like this one. My dad and I were always in shitty apartments, but...I used to walk around the suburbs nearby and look at all the old Queen Annes and tell myself I was gonna get one, someday.” He cleared his throat, ears a bit pink. and eyed Shiro. “What do you think, so far? No ghosts, right?”

Shiro hated that he couldn’t answer that affirmatively, but he found himself nodding. “It’s, uh, cool,” he managed, and when Keith raised an eyebrow, he added, “the rent is really good, and honestly I’m happy with it if you are, Keith. It’s either this place or another shitty apartment, and you know how we feel about more shitty apartments.”

Keith offered him a small smile. “Thanks, Shiro,” he said. “And...hey, I’m glad we’re gonna be roommates in our own place, this year.”

“What, you don’t wanna room with Lance and Hunk again?” Shiro asked archly. “Don’t you miss Lance busting into the dorm apartment unannounced at three in the morning with five hours of drama to share with all of us? And Hunk always hogging the kitchen and breathing down all our necks if we so much as left a fork in the sink unwashed?”

Keith groaned. “Don’t remind me…Hunk is so good at guilt-tripping for dirty dishes...”

“Well, I won’t guilt-trip you for that,” Shiro said. “I know you’ll get to it eventually.” He paused. “Although, I will miss Hunk’s cooking.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said, “we can cook with each other now, yeah? I can show you how to make chili, finally.”

“Please,” Shiro said, some of his unease falling away at the thought of domesticity with Keith. “Teach me your ways, chili master.”

Keith snorted. “Nah, my dad was the chili master — but I’ll do my best.” He nodded upstairs. “Should we check out the bedrooms?”

Shiro followed him up. The upstairs was fairly simple — two smallish bedrooms and a bathroom at the end of the hall. It was a relief not to see any spooky trap doors up to the attic, at least. The bedrooms were as sparsely furnished as the rest of the house, but as they each wandered into the rooms that caught their eye, Shiro found himself in the east-facing room, staring at the cloth-covered object in the far corner.

It was tall and slender, as tall as he was, and as Shiro approached, he saw the uncovered edge of it glint in the sun filtering in through the curtains. Brow furrowed, Shiro drew upon the corner of the draped cloth without knowing entirely why he was doing it.

The cloth fell away to reveal a mirror — full-length, with an ornately gilded frame which held dark, tarnished glass, darker at the edges. It looked very old — perhaps even older than the house. Peering into it, Shiro realized that the glass was so dark he could hardly see his own reflection. But then, looking closer, the image was reflected with startling clarity, so clear that he could see every detail of the room, including Keith standing in the doorway…

“Shiro! Check out the view from this room!”

Shiro turned. Keith wasn’t standing in the doorway. He was looking out the window of the bedroom across the hall. Shiro glanced back into the mirror. It was dark. Keith wasn’t there. Maybe — maybe Keith had just ducked into the room for a second, and Shiro had caught him in the reflection. Yes. That had to be it.

But he wasn’t keen on turning his back on the mirror, anyway. “Hey,” he called, “Keith? Found something weird in here…”

It was really such a strange mirror. The more he looked at the design carved into the frame, the less he understood it — was it vines, snakes, spirals, all of the above, or none of them? There was no telling.

“Hm?” Keith wandered into the room, eyes widening when he saw the mirror. “Oh, wow. That looks antique...might need some cleaning, though.” He stepped closer, and reached out to wipe away some of the grime on the top of the frame. The metal was so dark that it was hard to tell what parts of it were clean.

As Keith brushed it off, he paused, tilting his head and peering down at it. “Huh, there are words on here, some kind of engraving.”

Shiro was not a fan of that. “...What does it say?”

“Vanitas,” Keith read, and shrugged. “Latin? I don’t know.”

“Vanity, yeah.” Shiro frowned. “Fitting...I guess.”

“It’s a nice mirror,” Keith said, running his hand along the frame. “I wonder why the previous tenants left it here.”

“Probably not easy to transport?” Shiro guessed. He hoped it was as simple as that. _Just a mirror,_ he told himself firmly. _Don’t get freaked out by a stupid mirror in front of Keith. Keith’s not freaked out at all._

“True,” Keith agreed easily. “Well...at least you won’t have to buy a mirror, huh?”

Shiro blinked at him. “Are we signing the lease?”

Keith faltered. “Oh – I mean – we can keep looking, if you want, but I checked out the other bedroom and the bathroom and it all looks really nice...the only thing is that the bathtub might be too small for you, um, you may wanna check if you can fit…”

“It can’t be _that_ tiny!” Shiro huffed at him and covered the mirror back up with the dropcloth before turning away and following Keith out of the room. “I guess you’re right, though – this place was a lucky find. It’s bigger than any of the other ones we’ve looked at...how did you say you found it, again?”

Keith flapped a hand. “Oh, the landlord put up an ad on one of the sites we were looking at, and I guess I found it right when it went up, because no one had made an offer yet.”

“First come, first serve?” Shiro muttered. He leaned into the bathroom and eyed the bathtub. It was one of those old-fashioned clawfoot tubs, with cast iron feet and a porcelain tub that looked like it was petite-to-regular person-sized. “...Oh. I see what you mean.”

Keith winced. “Just...try?”

Shiro tried. It required some hunching to get into the tub, but once in, he could stretch out his legs about halfway. His elbows knocked against the cold porcelain, but at least he could only feel one sore elbow. The metal one just made a hollow clang. Shiro snorted. Keith raised an eyebrow, covering his mouth, looking like he was trying not to laugh.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” Shiro asked, sliding down further into the tub, knees bending even more awkwardly.

“It’s not my fault you’re huge,” Keith retorted.

Ears hot, Shiro climbed out of the tub. “Yeah, well. Looks like I just barely fit.” He tilted his head. “Hey, at least I can finally use those bath bombs Lance kept giving me. I must have like...twenty at this point.”

Keith grinned. “When they ask why our water bill is so high, I’ll just tell them it’s because you’re finally figuring out self-care.”

Shiro gawked at him. “I resent that! I do self-care!”

“Oh, sure, Mr. Stayed-Up-To-4-AM-For-The-Third-Night-In-A-Row-To-Finish-A-Project-That’s-Not-Due-For-A-Week –”

“It was 3 AM,” Shiro said, “and I had _other projects_ to do, Keith, it’s called _time management.”_

“Uh-huh,” Keith said. “Well, I wouldn’t want you managing my time.”

“Ouch.”

Keith gave him a pat on the shoulder. “An overplanner and a chronic procrastinator. What a team, huh?”

“Woo,” Shiro said. “I love college.”

Keith snorted. “Hey, you know you’re welcome to just bust into my room and scream into my pillow anytime you feel the urge.”

Was it warm in here? It felt warm in here. Shiro coughed. “Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. Same goes for you.”

Keith tilted his head. “I prefer hitting things,” he admitted. He eyed the bedroom window. “I bet we could break lots of shit by throwing it out there…”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Oh my god, you’re a menace. Just install a punching bag in the living room while you’re at it, we can be our own frat house.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea –” Keith paused as Shiro spluttered at him, “the punching bag idea! Not the frat house! I don’t want to be a frat house. If there are ghosts, and we made this a frat house, we would definitely deserve ghost revenge.”

“Yeah, let’s not,” Shiro chuckled, ignoring the ghost revenge part as best he could.

“So,” Keith hedged, “what do you think?”

“Can we look at the downstairs a little more?” Shiro asked, mainly to get away from the mirror. Why was it so unnerving? _Vanitas, vanitas._ Stupid spooky mirror with stupid spooky Latin. Maybe the previous tenant left it here just to fuck with people. Yeah. That was probably it.

They wandered around downstairs for a while, and by the time they got to the in-unit washer and dryer combo, Shiro had to admit it was a damn good find.

“Okay,” Shiro conceded as they stood on the back porch together – yes, this place had an honest to God porch – looking at the honest to God backyard. It was small, but it would be theirs. _Theirs._ The thought made his heart flutter in a not unpleasant way. He glanced over at Keith, who was smiling, eyes wide and hopeful. As if Shiro could ever deny him...that _look_ was just cheating. “It’s a cool place,” he said. “I’m in.”

“Yeah?” Keith beamed. “You like it?”

“I like the idea of us living here, yeah,” Shiro said, desperately banishing the mirror from his mind. “Even if it needs some more furniture and maybe a few plants...and maybe a cat…”

_“Shiro,”_ Keith warned, but there was no heat to it.

“Just one,” Shiro wheedled, “I promise.”

“Sure.” Keith laughed, leaning against the railing, and for a long moment Shiro couldn’t help but admire the arch of his spine, easy and languid, the way the autumn breeze caught his black hair and feathered it across the nape of his neck and the apples of his cheeks. “Our first house...huh.”

“It’ll be an adventure,” Shiro said, settling against the railing beside him.

Keith’s eyes crinkled up at the corners. “Yeah. It will.”

*

Everything moved very quickly after that.

They signed the lease and got the deposits and insurance and all the other gross paperwork that went along with Renting A House. The landlord, a large Russian man named Sendak, was...weird, but Shiro was polite in the face of Sendak’s brusque demeanor, and the actual signing was relatively painless. Shiro thought to ask him about the mirror, but something stopped him, and thinking back, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he hadn’t said something.

But it was easy to forget about the mirror in the ensuing chaos of moving in and housewarming, college edition, which essentially meant Allura showing up with a jug of sangria and the new multicooker Shiro had been dropping hints about for weeks after his ancient rice cooker broke, and all of their other friends showing up with varying degrees of helpful and deeply unhelpful “gifts,” including _more goddamn bath bombs_ from Lance.

“Buddy,” Shiro said, pained, as he peered into the powerfully soap-scented paper bag, “really?”

Lance frowned and jerked his head over in Keith’s direction. “Hey, Keith said you had a bathtub and wanted more!”

Shiro gave Keith a look from across the living room. Keith saw the paper bag and raised an eyebrow. Smug bastard. “Thanks, Lance,” Shiro said through gritted teeth. “Super thoughtful.”

Pidge came ready to help them assemble several days’ worth of IKEA furniture, but she wouldn’t stop letting them know about how they really should have invested in some Goodwill antiques, because _apparently_ the EKTORP sofa just _didn’t quite jive_ with the late nineteenth century. Shiro suggested adding claw feet to everything, and then had to listen to a fifteen minute long lecture from Pidge about the infinite dangers of clawfoot tubs, during which EKTORP remained a sad pile of wooden dowels and confusing directions.

At least Hunk brought food. Lots of food, and at some point pizza got ordered, too. Between that and the sangria, they were pretty well set up for the week or so that it took to get fully moved in, more or less. Shiro took to sleeping on EKTORP once it was built, with the excuse that his bed still wasn’t built. This was true, but it was also true that he had been putting off building it, because it meant confronting the mirror again.

Unfortunately, by the end of the week Shiro’s bed was about the only thing left to build, and of course Lance noticed the mirror within five seconds of being in Shiro’s room.

“Holy shit, what is that?” He yanked back the drop cloth and Shiro resolutely did not look over at it. “Shiro, is this yours?”

“Does it _look_ like mine?” Shiro retorted.

“It looks super haunted,” Hunk said. “Like ‘oh man, we better put this in the attic and never look at it again’ kind of haunted.”

Shiro eyed him. “You think?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Allura said, peering closer, _“I_ think it’s rather pretty!”

“The glass is interesting,” Pidge agreed, abandoning the task of helping Shiro to join the mirror crowd. “It’s so dark, but it doesn’t really seem tarnished, just...naturally dark. So clear, though.”

Shiro sighed. “Can we focus, guys?”

Keith ducked into the room at that exact moment, a bag of gummy worms in his hand, and glanced from the mirror to Shiro’s exhausted face. Wordlessly, he came over and offered the bag. “Gummy worm?”

“Thanks,” Shiro said, gingerly taking one and biting it in half with possibly too much force. “Is there an attic we can put that thing in?”

Keith frowned. “You’re not a fan?”

“What, and you are?” Shiro asked, incredulous.

“I think it’s kind of nice...it seems like a waste to just put it in storage and forget about it. But if you really don’t want it, I can put it in my room —”

“No!” Shiro exclaimed, all at once struck with the deep and inexplicable dread that if Keith did take the mirror, he would be in danger. Shiro couldn’t let that happen. Keith blinked at him in owlish alarm. Shiro forced a smile. “No. That’s okay. The mirror is fine, I guess I’m just a little stressed, especially because _no one is helping me with this bed.”_

“Sorry!” Allura hurried over to help, as did the others, and Lance — thankfully — covered the mirror on his way back.

But Shiro still found his gaze drifting back to it...again, and again.

*

The mirror was subtle in its weirdness, at first.

Shiro kept it covered for the first week, and he didn’t touch the drop cloth, he was sure he didn’t, but when he woke up one morning the mirror was suddenly staring back at him, uncovered, dark glass gleaming in the sunshine.

“The fuck?” he said, more indignant than freaked out, and covered it back up. Must have been a draft. Or something.

But then it kept happening. Not every night, or even every other, but enough that it felt...deliberate. Shiro started covering it with heavier things as an experiment. A draft couldn’t knock over the old blackout curtain he ended up using; he was sure of that. Yet, three mornings after he’d placed it, sure enough, it lay crumpled at the base of the mirror.

He didn’t mention it to Keith. It was such a weird, small thing, and everything else about the house was just...good. Keith clearly loved it. And Shiro loved living with Keith.

But he did not love living with the damn mirror.

Finally, after hesitating to do so for a reason he couldn’t place, Shiro got a cheap motion capture camera and set it up within view of the mirror. It took him a long time to fall asleep that night, but when he woke up that morning, the mirror was again revealed.

When he checked the camera, he almost dropped it, because as soon as the timestamp hit four in the morning, he saw himself sitting up in bed, sliding out from under the covers and standing smoothly, before crossing the room and tugging on the curtain covering the mirror.

But that wasn’t the weirdest part. No, the weirdest part was that then, he watched himself stand in front of the mirror, unmoving, for — if the timestamps were to be believed — _sixteen minutes and forty three seconds._ Then he slowly turned and wandered back to bed.

“Nope,” Shiro said to himself, covering the mirror faster than ever before, “no, nope, fuck this.” Keith had already left for his morning class, so there was no one to witness Shiro bundling the mirror up into the curtain and hauling it downstairs, out the back door, and into the alley.

He could smash it. He should smash it. He went so far as to grab a good-sized rock from the alley and lift it. But...something stopped him.

There was a voice. He swore there was. The voice said, _Don’t hurt us._

Shiro stared at the covered mirror. “Oh, great, now I’m hearing voices?” he croaked.

But there was no reply, and at length, he dropped the rock, thinking of the way it had said “us” and shuddering. He left it in the alley, hopefully to rust into oblivion, and for nearly a month, it stayed there.

Then the mirror came back.

Just like that. One night when Shiro went to sleep it wasn’t there, and the next, it was standing in the corner again, pristine and uncovered.

Shiro almost screamed when he saw it. Almost. Instead, he clenched his jaw and made a frantic sound deep in his throat. Fuck. This.

He glared at the mirror, then threw back the covers and stalked up to it. “Alright,” he demanded, “what the hell are you?”

His reflection glared back at him from the dark glass, and then...the longer Shiro looked at it, the less like him the reflection looked. Its mouth began to curl into a wicked smirk while Shiro’s mouth remained in a firm scowl. Its head tilted, ever so slightly, to the side. It raised an eyebrow, and its eyes, in the depths of the mirror, began to glow a faint gold.

Shiro should cover it up. He needed to cover it up. But – he didn’t move. He stared, transfixed, horrified but also...horribly, undeniably _curious._

“What do you want from me?” Shiro whispered, aware of Keith asleep just across the hall. The reflection just kept on smirking, staring. “Are you a ghost?”

A pause, and then a slow, mocking shake of the head.

Shiro shivered. “Are you – what, a demon, then?”

The smirk widened. Shiro took a step back; his reflection did not.

“Shit,” Shiro whispered. “Shit, shit, _shit.”_

His reflection’s lips didn’t move.

“What do you want?” he demanded, and this time its lips did move, taking Shiro’s words and selecting what they needed from it into the reply, _What you want._

Shiro sucked in a breath. “What I want is for you to go away.”

The reflection’s golden eyes narrowed.

_“Please_ leave me alone,” Shiro tried, aiming for politeness. Maybe, if he was cool to the demon, it would find someone else to haunt. “I can’t help you, okay? I don’t have anything, I’m like fifty grand in debt and counting, so I don’t have anything to give you, I don’t know what you want, and – _what are you doing.”_

There were words appearing on the mirror, as if written on fogged up glass.

_You want him_

Shiro was screwed. Shiro was so screwed.

“What,” he said, barely a word.

The mirror started to write: _K E I_

Shiro surged forward, rubbing the letters out, or trying to – as soon as his hand made contact with the glass, it sank into it, and he felt another hand, clawed and cold and inhuman, seize his own and pull. Shiro panicked, digging his heels into the old rug beneath his feet and grabbing for the frame of the mirror with his right hand, bracing himself on it with the metal fingers desperately as the force within the mirror _yanked_ with what felt like nearly enough force to tear his other arm from its socket.

Then, as quickly as it had started, the pressure on his arm ceased, and the thing in the mirror gentled its grip, claws scraping over his knuckles and palm as they receded, and as it released him, Shiro fell to his knees before the mirror, gasping, cradling his left arm in his metal hand. He didn’t want to look at the mirror, but as his gaze flicked up to it, he saw his reflection – or rather, the thing that had taken the form of it – staring down at him with burning disdain.

_Do not try to get rid of us again,_ the mirror warned, and then Shiro was staring at his real reflection – ashen-faced, wide-eyed, and absolutely fucked.

It was only later that he noticed the inscription on the mirror frame had changed to _Desidero._

*

For a while after that, the mirror was just a mirror, to the point where Shiro started to doubt if he had in fact imagined everything. His reflection’s eyes didn’t glow, no voice spoke to him, and when he tentatively touched the dark glass, it was cool and solid.

The one aspect of its change that could not be denied was the inscription, but when Shiro asked Keith about it, Keith gave him an odd look and said he was pretty sure it had always been that way. Shiro didn’t ask Keith about the mirror anymore after that. The only thing more terrifying than the thought of the mirror altering his own perception of reality was the thought of it altering Keith’s. Shiro couldn’t let that thing, whatever it was, demon or otherwise extra-dimensional being, hurt Keith. It already knew his name...and knew far too much about Shiro’s feelings towards Keith. Possibly it knew more than Shiro himself did.

Because the thing was, Keith was his best friend. His hot best friend. His hot best friend who, so far as anyone knew, had literally never shown romantic interest in anyone. Which was fine, of course, except that Shiro had a pathetic, massive crush on him which was so forcefully repressed he sometimes convinced himself it didn’t exist.

But the mirror knew. How the mirror knew, Shiro didn’t know, nor was he sure he wanted to.

He had just decided to persuade himself that it had all been in his head after all, and he should maybe get that checked out, when the dreams began.

They started out...well, not innocent, but not...abnormal, either. When Shiro awoke, they lingered only as hazy impressions, soon to fade, with only the faint recollection that they had been of Keith. During a few of the more vivid ones, he had woken up aroused, cock rubbed to pleasant semihardness between the mattress and his belly, but there was nothing particularly strange about that, and if he thought about the dreams enough, he could easily convince himself that they hadn’t been about Keith at all, just a pale-skinned, dark-haired, nonspecific man. It didn’t _have_ to be Keith. Why would it _have_ to be _Keith?_

But then the dreams became something more vivid, more solid, than mere dreams.

And these dreams didn’t let him forget them.

There was no slow, sweet build-up. One night, Shiro was having pleasantly vague dreams that left him waking up tingly and rested, the next night, he was blowing Keith in the bathroom on the third floor of the College of Science and Engineering, right hand digging bruises into his pale, jutting hipbones as he yanked Keith’s waist off the tiled wall, greedy for more, feeding his cock deeper into Shiro’s mouth. Keith threw back his head with a string of curses, banging the wall with his hand in a fist and gasping as Shiro’s throat squeezed around the head of his cock.

“Shiro,” Keith babbled, “please – _fuck_ – someone’s gonna – gonna hear us – _ah!”_

Shiro grabbed his ass with his free hand, kneading the round, perfect swell of it through Keith’s tight jeans, feeling him up without hesitation, because this was his, Keith was all his. He didn’t care if anyone heard them, in fact, he fucking hoped they did, because then they would know exactly who Keith belonged to –

Shiro bolted upright in bed, gasping and soaked in sweat, his cock hard and jutting up between his thighs. Across the bed, he saw the mirror, once more uncovered, and the reflection that stared back at him was not sweaty and panicked, but calm and collected, a familiar, awful smirk spreading across his face. Golden eyes stared at Shiro with the same mocking amusement from before. Shiro stumbled out of bed and threw his blanket at the mirror, desperate to cover it as soon as possible.

He didn’t even know if that helped, because he swore he could still feel it looking at him, staring at him. Shiro could hear the sounds of the bath running, and was immediately struck with a horribly vibrant image of Keith up against their bathroom wall instead, moaning as Shiro swallowed down his cock and marked him up with grasping hands –

“Stop,” Shiro hissed, pointing at the mirror with a trembling finger. “What is this? We are _not_ doing this. _We are not._ Fuck with me all you like, but Keith? Leave him out of this! He doesn’t _want_ me, he doesn’t want this, so – _nngh!”_

Shiro was brought to his knees by the force of sensation that hit him then, an overwhelming barrage of pleasure, and the image that entered his mind this time was reversed: now it was Keith kneeling at his feet, sucking his cock in a way that could only be described as worshipful, his eyes half-lidded and lips stretched wide, and his mouth felt so good, warm and gentle and wet and –

Shiro came just like that, kneeling and gasping on the floor of his bedroom, the hastily covered mirror before him. He was aware then that he was not alone in the room – behind him, something loomed, close enough to touch, though he did not dare to do so. He just trembled, his sweatpants ruined and trapped cock still twitching weakly.

He felt it touch the nape of his neck with cold, fleeting claws. _We want,_ it reminded him, and left him...for a little while, at least.

*

Shiro avoided spending time in the house as much as possible. This wasn’t terribly difficult, as he was already overloading on classes and worked long hours tutoring besides, but he went out of his way to avoid it, going to the gym more often and even staying the night at Allura’s place when he could find a reasonable excuse to do so – they stayed up late studying often enough.

The main consequence of this was that he saw Keith a lot less, too. They weren’t in the same major, or even the same college, so brushes on campus were few and far between. Of course they made plans to have lunch together when they could – which wasn’t often – and saw each other in the house when Shiro was there, but...that was becoming less and less common.

The dreams had continued with that same awful, incredible intensity, and every one of them filled Shiro with equal parts shame and need. Shame, because it was wrong to think of his best friend this way, and need, because he swore the dreams were literally better than sex. That bar wasn’t super high, to be fair...Shiro enjoyed sex, sure, but it was more of an added bonus in a relationship than something he actively sought out otherwise. Sex was fine.

This was more than an added bonus. This was a fucking out of body experience, one which Shiro was painfully aware was definitely controlled by a damn demon trapped in a cursed mirror. He still couldn’t understand what the demon wanted from him, and figured that maybe, if it was just going to curse him with vivid sex dreams about Keith, he should consider himself lucky.

Although, the dreams had gotten somehow more intense. Kinkier, maybe. Shiro felt like the demon was digging around in his brain for ideas, and wow, _that_ was a terrifying possibility. It had been a small mercy that Keith hadn’t seemed to notice any of the dreams, but that changed when Shiro dreamed of himself bound and gagged on his own bed, helpless and naked and hopelessly turned on while Keith stalked around the edge of the bed all in black leather, his eyes bright and dangerous, smacking a leather riding crop against his palm.

It should have been ridiculous, but in the dream, all it was, was ridiculously hot, because when Keith touched the riding crop to Shiro’s skin, it was with confident and vicious pleasure, his eyes flashing and lips curling into a sharp grin as he covered Shiro in marks of his own, edging the tip of the crop along Shiro’s cock, swollen and kept that way by the silver ring around the base, so that every touch was ecstasy and hell all at the same time. Shiro had never experienced anything like this, and doubted he ever would again, especially when Keith laughed at him, low and cruel, and straddled his hips, guiding the dribbling tip of Shiro’s cock to his hole, open and waiting to sink down upon him.

As he did so, Shiro awoke with a scream, so overcome by the feeling, the feeling which felt entirely real, _more_ than real.

There was a loud shuffling from across the hall, a low creak, and that was all the warning Shiro got before his door flew open, Keith standing there wide-eyed, running to his bedside. “Shiro?” he exclaimed, brow knitted in worry. “Are you okay? You sounded hurt –”

_SHIRO WAS NOT OKAY._ Shiro’s thighs were absolutely covered in cum, the mess just barely hidden from Keith by his comforter, and his cock was somehow _still_ hard, and the memory of Keith sitting down on his cock was far too fresh in his mind for Keith to be standing in front of him now, in the flesh.

“Get out,” Shiro gasped, no thoughts in his mind save for preserving what little dignity he had left and getting Keith away from the force in the mirror, a force which he swore he could feel lingering nearby, watching him, watching them both. “I said _get out,_ Keith!”

Keith flinched away from the bed, hurt clear in his expression. “Oh,” he said, “I just – sorry, I thought –”

Shiro rolled away from him, shaking his head. “I’m fine, Keith. It’s fine. Please go.”

Keith went, and that day, Shiro wasn’t the only one avoiding being at the house.

*

“Are you mad at me?”

Shiro almost choked on his pasta. It was just a few days after Keith had walked in on him, and one of the few nights they had made dinner together recently. An awkwardness had suffused it that Shiro didn’t like, nor did he know how to get rid of. He cleared his throat and eyed Keith from across the small IKEA table. “What? No, of course not, Keith.”

Keith looked down at his bowl, picking at noodles listlessly. “Really? Because it seems like you’re avoiding me. What did I do?”

Oh, no. “You didn’t do anything!” Shiro insisted, horrified. “Nothing. I promise. I’m not avoiding you.”

“Then what?” Keith asked, frowning at him. “Is it the house? You don’t like the house? Have I been – I dunno, snoring or something? You know you can tell me if I am, right, and we can figure it out –”

“You don’t snore, Keith,” Shiro sighed. “It’s not...I mean, maybe it is the house, a little bit, but…”

Keith’s face fell and Shiro immediately regretted saying anything. “You should have said something before we signed the lease if you really hated it.”

“I don’t hate it!”

“Then why are you never here?” Keith demanded. “I mean – Allura said sometimes it feels like you’re trying to move in with her, and she asked me if everything was okay between us!”

“Everything’s okay!” Shiro said, sweating hard, now. “I’m sorry, Keith. I didn’t mean to – the house gives me the creeps sometimes, okay, and it’s probably just me being silly.” He swore he heard mocking laughter even as he said it. “It’s not you, Keith. I promise it’s not, you haven’t done anything wrong, and I’m not mad.”

Keith bit his lip. “I’m sorry it creeps you out...that’s why you had that nightmare, isn’t it?” He looked so dejected, so absolutely guilty, that Shiro couldn’t stop himself from reaching across the table and grabbing Keith’s hand. Keith froze, eyes widening, his fingers curling against Shiro’s warm palm.

“Don’t worry about it, Keith,” Shiro said firmly, and squeezed his hand once before letting go, the setting suddenly too intimate – clearly, he’d freaked Keith out, judging by the other’s round eyes and frozen state. “I’ll...try to be here more, if you want. I love hanging out with you, you know that. Right?”

“Yeah,” Keith said unsteadily. “I – I love hanging out with you, too. Obviously. Um.” He began attacking his pasta with focus, frowning as he did so.

Shiro felt even worse. He hadn’t meant to make Keith uncomfortable. “Okay,” he said, “I’m glad.”

Keith ducked his head, face hidden behind the fringe of his hair. “I...would like it if I saw you around here more often, though. I mean...I wanted you to be my roommate for a reason.”

“Oh?” Shiro’s heart was pounding. A _reason?_ What did that mean? Surely not –

“Yeah. I mean, I like seeing you every day,” Keith said, a bit shyly. “Lance, on the other hand...I’d lose my mind. And Hunk is great, but he can be a lot...I don’t get how anyone can be that much of a morning person.”

Shiro forced a laugh. Keith liked seeing him every day. What did that mean? _WHAT DID THAT MEAN???_ “Yeah, I get what you mean. I’ve never seen anyone so chipper at six in the morning before.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Keith’s lips. “You, on the other hand, are just kinda nocturnal.”

“So are you!” Shiro retorted. “I think you’ve pulled more all-nighters than I have, cumulatively.”

“Hah, maybe,” Keith admitted, and lifted his water glass. “So, we’re perfect for each other.”

“Ha,” Shiro said, inwardly imploding, “totally, yeah, buddy.”

_Buddy?_ said the voice in his head incredulously. _Fucking seriously?_

Shiro didn’t drop the water glass, but it was a near thing.

*

The mirror dreams, however, did seem to stop. This was after Shiro had given it a stern talking to about freaking Keith out. “If you’ve gotta do...whatever this shit is,” Shiro told it, “then we need to have some kind of compromise, okay?”

There had been no answer, but Shiro would like to think that the negotiation went well after he went a week straight with only one, comparatively very vanilla, sex dream about Keith.

And then he took a bath.

He used the gym showers when possible, because the clawfoot bathtub really was impractical for him to use, and maybe Pidge’s dire warnings about death by bathtub had made at least a slight impression. But those damn bath bombs from Lance weren’t going to use themselves, so after a particularly harrowing week of midterms, Shiro decided to take Lance’s advice – for the first and only time – and treat himself to something nice.

The bath bomb was pink with gold glitter, and Shiro had to admit it was very pretty as he watched it fizz and color the bathwater in an impressive display. He let it finish fizzing before climbing gingerly into the tub, and though it was a tight fit, he found a comfortable position after some squirming and minimal sloshing of water over the side.

The size of the tub forced him to bend his legs, spreading them slightly so he could rest his knees on the sides of the tub, and as the porcelain warmed to match the temperature of the bathwater, Shiro found himself genuinely relaxing, sighing and sinking a little lower into the water.

Then he felt hands on his thighs.

Shiro’s eyes shot open, a shout on the tip of his tongue, but all the breath left him at the sight of the creature looming over him. It was himself, but not: himself from the mirror, somehow made flesh, or not quite flesh, but some smoky, ghostly simulacrum of it. It smiled at him, and it was his own smile but twisted, warped and filled with too many sharp teeth.

Shiro swallowed as it braced itself on the rim of the tub, leaning closer. _We want,_ it said.

“What?” Shiro stammered, barely a whisper.

_Let us in,_ it cooed, breath warm, feathering over his lips. _We’ll make it worth your while._

Shiro squeezed his eyes shut. “You’re not real,” he whispered, biting his lip hard as he felt a broad chest press against his own, felt its lower body settle between his thighs, pulling them further apart – or maybe Shiro’s legs were just spreading of his own volition. “I’m – I’m dreaming, I’ve gotta be – _ah_ – dreaming…”

Beneath the shimmery surface of the water, he could feel it pressing against him, into him. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. But it felt just real enough that Shiro had to cover his mouth, teeth digging into his own palm as something filled him, long and thick and curling, stroking deep within him. “Please,” he said, muffled in his hand, “I don’t – understand –”

_Imagine it’s him,_ a soft purr suggested, and Shiro shuddered, hips kicking involuntarily upwards, stomach sucking in. _Let us take you apart like he would, Takashi._

Shiro panted harshly against his palm, mouth falling open as it fucked into him deeper, too deep; he had never felt so open and exposed in his life, and he felt himself slumping back against the porcelain, toes curling, cock peeking out from the surface of the warm water, dark and throbbing and as confused yet desperate for release as he felt. He squeezed his eyes shut again and then felt the impossible brush of a wet tongue over the crown of his cock, the sudden sensation enough to make him clench down on the thing filling him, which had begun to pulse and twitch, as if in warning.

Shiro covered his mouth frantically. He couldn’t let Keith hear – couldn’t let Keith see him like this –

A clawed hand yanked his hand away from his mouth, and before Shiro’s pitiful protest could echo through the quiet bathroom, something else plunged down his throat, something between a tongue and a cock, all warped and twisting shadow. His eyes rolled back as the thing in his ass swelled thicker, and that same damn voice whispered, _But what if he did see you? He wouldn’t be able to resist._

Shiro had no answer for that save for a choked moan around the thing fucking his mouth. A long, warm tongue curled around his cock at the same time, sending Shiro into shocked climax as his ass and throat were filled with a warmth that settled heavy in his belly.

When his blurring vision cleared, he was alone in the bathtub – and maybe he had always been alone – fucked out and disbelieving, staring at the ceiling and trying to remember how to breathe again.

*

As before, there was a kind of lull in the mirror’s shenanigans, at least until the next week, when Shiro dreamed of nothing at all, and woke up in Keith’s bed, snuggled against Keith’s back. He had woken up because Keith had leapt out of bed and was now staring at him.

For a moment of frozen bewilderment, nothing happened.

Then Keith said, “Um – _Shiro?_ What are you –”

“What the fuck,” Shiro whispered, and then, louder, _“what the fuck?”_

Keith blinked at him. “You...were in my bed…” He cleared his throat. “You’re still...in my bed…”

Shiro scrambled out of the bed. “I – I don’t –”

“You were probably sleepwalking?” Keith suggested. He flailed a hand towards the door, which was wide open, revealing Shiro’s bedroom door, also wide open, and beyond it...the stupid mirror, uncovered once more. “Forgot to close the doors…”

“I’m so sorry,” Shiro said, backing away, towards the door. “I don’t know – what’s happening –”

Keith’s eyes widened in concern. “Shiro? Hey, wait a sec, it’s okay. Are you okay? Have you been having more nightmares?”

“You should lock your door,” Shiro whispered, nails digging into his palm. The mirror had gone too far – Shiro thought they had an agreement that it was gonna keep Keith out of this, and now it had just introduced the possibility that Shiro might, what – hurt Keith in his sleep? No, no, _no,_ fuck this –

But Keith marched up to him with a glint in his eye, and Shiro found his shoulders fiercely grabbed as Keith stepped right into his space and said, _“What?_ I’m not locking my door, Shiro, that’s not...I’m not _scared_ of you, okay? But you have to tell me what’s going on with you!”

_Yes, tell him, Shiro,_ the voice chuckled.

“There’s nothing going on,” Shiro lied, eyes darting to the mirror and then back again, before Keith could follow his gaze. “I just, uh, sleepwalk sometimes.”

Keith peered at him. “You never used to sleepwalk before…”

“Well, I never used to climb into people’s beds before, either, but, oops,” Shiro said weakly, rubbing his eyes. He peeked at Keith from between his fingers. “I really am sorry.”

Keith frowned. “You don’t need to be sorry,” he said, and let go. “Just...you know you can talk to me, right? About...whatever.”

“Right,” Shiro croaked, thinking of being fucked within an inch of his life in the clawfoot bathtub Keith liked so much, “I know. Thanks, Keith.”

Keith let him go, and maybe Keith wouldn’t lock his door, but Shiro did, and prayed that the mirror wouldn’t send him out the second story window in an attempt to get close to Keith instead.

*

The dreams didn’t stop, and Shiro limited his baths to five minutes or less, and he tried to stay at the house as much as possible so as not to arouse suspicion from Keith, and the voice still spoke to him in snarky yet ominous remarks, and put simply, Shiro was losing his goddamn mind.

So when Keith declared that he was going to teach Shiro how to make chili, Shiro knew it was bound to end in disaster, but also knew that Keith didn’t deserve him being flaky and awful, so he agreed. And that was how he ended up suffering in close proximity to Keith for several hours in the kitchen. Shiro was doomed – but he knew that from the start.

Keith, because he was wonderful, had carefully adjusted the recipe to make it vegetarian for Shiro, and was infinitely patient in showing Shiro how to dice tomatoes and chop an onion so fast it didn’t even have time to make you cry. Shiro wished he could appreciate it all, but instead he was hyper-aware of Keith’s closeness, of the smell of his cologne, of the span of his hands as he gathered up chopped veggies and drained beans, the timbre of his voice as he walked Shiro through it.

And all of it was perfectly, horribly addicting, so much so that Shiro found himself wondering how he’d possibly resisted Keith for so long, how and why he had told himself it would be better to let this crush lay buried deep and forgotten. It was a crime, frankly.

When Shiro was struggling to properly chop cilantro and Keith covered his hand on the knife handle, trying to show him the right way to do it, Shiro dropped the knife altogether with a loud clatter against the cutting board, unable to even look at Keith as he did so, for fear that if he met Keith’s eyes, he wouldn’t be able to look away. Shiro felt like a man possessed.

“Sorry!” Keith exclaimed, his hand jerking away, stepping back. “Didn’t mean to spook you, I –”

“You didn’t,” Shiro mumbled, “that’s not...it’s my fault. Just jumpy.”

“Okay,” Keith said, clearly unconvinced, but they resumed their cooking in only semi-awkward silence...at least until Shiro was stirring the chili and Keith came up behind him suddenly.

Keith wasn’t any closer than he’d normally be – okay, maybe he was a _little_ closer – but something about the way Keith’s chest brushed against his shoulder, and the way their hips met, and the burning warmth of Keith’s body...Shiro couldn’t handle it. Every point where their bodies touched was a point he felt like a brand, but one he wanted, and he couldn’t handle that, nor could he handle the voice that suddenly filled him, set him aflame, growling, _He’s yours, ours, mine._

Shiro practically leapt away from the stove, half-crashing into Keith as he hip-checked him, sending Keith staggering against the counter and Shiro tripping over his own feet, barely catching himself on the opposite counter. For a long and painful moment, they just stared at each other. Keith’s face was slowly turning beet red, his chest rising and falling unevenly. It took Shiro a moment to place his expression, and when he did, it didn’t make any sense. Keith was embarrassed, moreso than Shiro had ever seen him.

“Sorry,” Shiro stammered, “that was – you snuck up on me, uh –”

Keith’s eyes narrowed. He swallowed, his gaze flicking away, shoulders hunched. “Sure. Yeah. Sorry.” Then he straightened up and turned his back on Shiro, quietly tending to the abandoned pot of chili.

Shiro hated that the first thing he noticed was how good Keith’s ass looked below his messily-tied apron strings. He tore his gaze away, his own face hot, now. “I think...maybe I need to lay down,” he said lamely.

“Yeah, you do that,” Keith muttered, still not looking at him.

With the feeling that he had possibly irrevocably fucked something up, Shiro did a walk of shame upstairs, ignoring the whispers all around him, the invisible claws plucking at his shirt, trying halfheartedly to drag him back down to the kitchen.

*

Keith was short with him after the chili incident, and Shiro probably deserved it. To his credit, though, he tried to make it up to Keith. He got coffee for Keith the day after, with the order he’d memorized, and presented it to Keith in the library after hunting down Keith’s favorite study spot.

Keith had blinked at him rapidly, then at the coffee, his brow furrowing. “What’s this?”

“Coffee,” Shiro said stupidly. “I just thought maybe you’d – want some.”

Keith opened his mouth, then closed it. He worried his lower lip between his teeth. “The last time you got me coffee must’ve been...freshman year.”

“Yeah, well,” Shiro barked out a nervous laugh, “I was just walking by your favorite coffee shop, and, you know, you’re my friend, so, thought I might as well.”

“Uh...right. As you do.” Hesitantly, he reached out and took the cup from Shiro.

As their fingers brushed, Shiro couldn’t stop himself from jerking his hand away, almost upending the cup, some of it spilling over Keith’s knuckles. “Sorry!” Shiro exclaimed, but Keith didn’t even flinch.

His face just shuttered off, and he shrugged, putting the cup on the table. “It’s fine, Shiro,” he said dully. “Thanks for the coffee.”

Shiro was pretty certain it _wasn’t_ fine. He wasn’t gonna forget that look in Keith’s eyes anytime soon, but how could he possibly explain that every time he touched Keith, he was seized by some...supernatural compulsion which apparently wanted, more than anything, for him and Keith to fuck like bunnies?

So instead he just kept trying to make it right, whether with coffee or by cleaning the house so Keith never had to or getting them both takeout or _whatever._ Shiro knew he wasn’t the greatest at fixing relationships – his ex Adam could attest to that – but he knew with every fiber of his being that what he had with Keith was too precious to be lost over something like...this.

Even though literally nothing in Shiro’s life held a candle to this shit. This shit was bananas, and it was only getting weirder, because the dreams had...changed. No longer were they constantly escalating, off-the-wall-kinky. No, now they were in some ways worse, because they were more like...achingly, impossibly tender.

Shiro didn’t know how it was possible for a dream in which he fucked Keith missionary-style on a bed literally laden with rose petals, in a room lit by actual candlelight, to fuck him up more upon waking than a dream in which he was suspended in a sex swing with Keith railing him from behind.

Like, maybe it said _something_ about him that he was way more freaked out by the mirror manifesting dreams of them staring into each other’s eyes and confessing their eternal love for each other.

He wasn’t sure what that something was – maybe that he was emotionally repressed and the thought of admitting to himself just how deeply he felt for Keith was terrifying.

Because the thing was, he felt _all the things_ in these dreams, too. Except these feelings were more than just being fucked really good. These feelings were more like soul-shattering epiphanies, and each one fucked up Shiro far more than a dream or real sex swing ever could.

Keith was his best friend. But it was possible that Keith was also the love of his life, but how could that be, when Keith was now the one so clearly avoiding him?

The answer came unexpectedly, via the way all the best unexpected and drama-laden answers come: eavesdropping.

Shiro had gotten back from the gym earlier than usual, because the cycling class he and Hunk had started going to a few weeks back had been canceled after the instructor came down with a nasty case of food poisoning. He had planned to make himself a smoothie, at least put a dent in the pile of homework waiting for him, and then try (unsuccessfully, if the last three times were anything to go off of) to coax Keith into a movie night.

Instead, as soon as he unlocked the door and stepped inside, he heard Keith’s voice from upstairs, echoing through the house in strident tones. Shiro’s first thought was that he was in trouble – maybe he’d looked at the mirror for too long, and it had gotten to him, too? – but no, as he listened a moment longer, there was a pause before Keith exploded into speech again. He was talking to someone – on the phone, Shiro hoped. And judging from the fact that he hadn’t faltered in his tirade, he hadn’t noticed Shiro come in.

He should just leave Keith’s business to Keith, and let him have his privacy.

He should.

But Shiro did not do that, because he was only human.

Feeling like an absolute dumbass and asshole all in one, Shiro tiptoed up the creaky as fuck stairs until he was safely on the landing and within earshot of Keith’s conversation.

The person he was talking to was Allura, Shiro realized after a moment of listening, and with a slight sense of betrayal. He didn’t know Allura and Keith had gossip sessions. Because that was, at first, what it sounded like. He couldn’t make out all of Allura’s words over the crackly phone speaker through the door at first, but the tone was indignant.

And then Keith replied, and…all thoughts of guilt for eavesdropping fizzled out into nothing, because,

“I know he’s into guys, you know he’s into guys, so it’s not a _no homo_ thing, it’s a _no Keith_ thing!” Keith half-yelled, followed by a dull thump that could have been him throwing himself down onto his own bed.

“I think you may be jumping to conclusions –”

“Allura, listen to me. He’s been acting weird for weeks now, and I thought – I don’t know, I was stupid and thought maybe the sleepwalking thing was him trying to come onto me, because I don’t know how that works, but he seemed really freaked out about it, and –”

“Oh, Keith –”

“– and maybe there’s something seriously wrong with him, or maybe I’m just telling myself that so that I don’t have to face the reality that Shiro’s never liked me like that, and he’s never going to!” Keith snapped, but his voice broke halfway through, like he was about to cry.

“You don’t know that, Keith, just _talk_ to him!”

“He doesn’t want to talk,” Keith said, defeat slipping into his tone. “He just wants to give me consolation prizes, probably so we can just forget it and move on, but how can I forget the only person I’ve ever had feelings for, Allura? How?”

Standing on the landing, still soaked in sweat and in his gym clothes, Shiro’s jaw dropped. Without meaning to, he gasped, loudly, and took a step back, the landing creaking even louder in the silence.

There was a long pause. “Shiro?” Keith called, his voice sounding so afraid that it made Shiro’s heart hurt. “Are you – is that you?”

Around him, an unseen force coiled, gaining power, lying in wait, hungry.

Shiro didn’t dare to speak, for fear his tongue would betray him, somehow. He held his breath.

“...I’ll call you back, Allura,” Keith said shakily, and then the call dropped and Keith’s door swung open and they were standing face to face. Keith blanched as soon as he saw him, drawing in a sharp breath, gaze raking frantically over Shiro. “I – I thought you were at the gym.”

“Cycling class got canceled,” Shiro croaked. _“Keith –”_

Keith shook his head, the fear in his voice now displayed plainly across his face, jaw set and lips trembling. “Don’t,” he begged, “don’t...apologize, please don’t say anything –” He edged towards the stairs, and Shiro knew that if he let Keith run, he was going to regret it.

_Mine,_ the voice in his head said, and in that moment, he didn’t even think of disobeying it.

So he didn’t let Keith run. He grabbed Keith’s wrist and held him fast. Keith stared up at him helplessly, jerking his wrist, but Shiro didn’t let go. “I wasn’t going to apologize,” Shiro said. Keith’s wrist was so slender in his grasp, his skin soft; he swore he could feel Keith’s pulse pounding, just below the surface. “I was going to say I have feelings for you, too. A lot of feelings. So many that I don’t know what to do with them all, and sometimes it scares me how much I feel for you, Keith.”

Keith made a low, strangled sound, a kind of choked whimper. “Shiro,” he whispered, “are you – are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Shiro said, stepping closer to him, so close he could hardly bear it. “Did you mean it?” he asked. “I’m the only person you’ve ever had feelings for?”

Keith’s throat worked. “Yeah,” he said, barely audible, his lashes fluttering as Shiro leaned in. “For – for a long time, now.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Shiro murmured, brushing dark waves of hair out of Keith’s face. He was even more irresistible up close. Weeks ago, it might have frightened him. Now, he accepted it. This was where he belonged. It was where Keith belonged, too...if he didn’t know it yet, he would learn, soon.

Keith’s breath was coming fast and shallow, his cheek hot under Shiro’s thumb. “I didn’t think – you felt the same way. Didn’t think it was possible, I…”

“Why not?” Shiro cooed, the words flowing to his tongue unbidden, yet they felt so natural. “You’re incredible, Keith.” Keith’s face burned hotter, his pupils dilating. “You wanna know why I’ve been acting weird, huh?” Keith nodded, jerky, eyes unfocused now. “It’s because I want you too much,” Shiro confessed, low and dark. “Ever since we moved in together, I just – whenever I touch you, or you touch me, it drives me fucking crazy, Keith.”

“Fuck,” Keith whispered, and promptly launched himself at Shiro, their lips meeting in a searing kiss. Keith kissed him clumsy but filthy, and Shiro caught him, lifting Keith without a thought and carrying him – again, without quite realizing what he was doing – into his bedroom. Legs clinging to his hips, arms thrown around his neck, Keith didn’t seem to notice, just panted and kissed him harder, all tongue and teeth, unpracticed but sweet with enthusiasm.

He definitely noticed when Shiro sat down on his bed, though, with Keith settling in his lap, thighs splayed around his hips, eyes wide and hair mussed from Shiro’s hands. “Shiro,” Keith stammered, “we – we should talk about this – _ah…”_

Shiro had ducked down to nuzzle into his throat and graze his teeth over that smooth, fragile skin, letting his tongue follow, painting shiny trails over Keith’s flesh. “Later,” Shiro promised, “right now, let me show you how you make me feel. You want that, don’t you?” As he spoke, his hands framed Keith’s hips, his right hand sliding over the front of Keith’s jeans.

Keith whined, high and frantic, his own eyes darting down to Shiro’s tenting gym shorts, which weren’t hiding much of anything at this point. “Yeah,” Keith groaned, nodding as Shiro’s hand started to rub, slow and teasing. “I do, I do.”

“Good,” Shiro said, nudging him closer, until Keith’s ass pressed down over the curve of his cock, heavy and hard, so hard, fitting so perfectly between Keith’s spread thighs. “Tell me what you want, Keith.”

Keith shuddered as Shiro popped the button on his jeans, guiding the zipper down, down, down. He tucked his face into Shiro’s throat, nails digging into Shiro’s shoulders, hips rolling against him with delicious friction. _“You,”_ Keith gasped, “I want you, Shiro.”

His reward was Shiro’s hand, and it was easy then to fall into a mess of moans and sweat and pleasure, Keith fumbling and learning in his lap, sharp teeth biting at his throat as Shiro worked him to a slow and lovely ruin.

As his hand moved, though, Shiro found himself drawn away from Keith, his gaze fixing over Keith’s shoulder, upon the dark, shining surface of the mirror.

His reflection stared back at him, holding Keith captive in its lap, and the hand around Keith’s narrow waist was clawed and monstrous instead of sleek metal. Its eyes began to glow a familiar gold, brighter and brighter the longer Shiro looked into them, as if the light might swallow him up.

_You got what you want...now we get what we want,_ the him in the mirror said, and this time, Shiro couldn’t actually tell if it was just his reflection’s lips moving, or the two of them, in perfect synchrony.


End file.
